It’s not clear who made the call, but police were summoned Tuesday night to the City Council’s weekly meeting following a raucous outburst from a handful of shouting spectators.

TPD Chief Edward Walsh and at least one other police officer hurried into the chambers of the interim City Hall inside Maxham School after shouting erupted among some of the 40 or so people sitting in the galley.

The outburst resulted in Councilman David Pottier calling for an emergency recess.

The outburst was spurred by a scheduled third reading for passage of a new trash-and-refuse ordinance to levy a $73 trash-collection fee on single-unit, residential property owners.

The council last June approved the fee to be included in the FY12 budget, after former mayor Charles Crowley stated that to do otherwise would result in the layoffs of more than 50 cops and firefighters, due to an unforseen $1.3 million dollar shortfall.

Crowley at the time explained there had been a fiscal miscalculation regarding the city’s health-insurance plan, and that the fee was necessary — especially since the council had already rejected doubling the price of trash bags from $1 to $2.

An ordinance was never passed, however, and the delay resulted in a grassroots protest that led to Tuesday night’s fireworks.

The ordinance was finally passed by a 6-to-2 vote, with Pottier and Sherry Costa-Hanlon voting in opposition.

Budget director Gill Enos came under fire by those councilors before things became unruly.

Pottier criticized Enos’s breakdown of how the money will be used. He noted the inclusion of $265,000 for paying down the $2.8 million purchase of land from property owner Alex Rich — land that originally was intended to be used for a new trash-to-energy facility.

Costa-Hanlon called the fee “an illegal tax” and said the city risked repercussions from the state’s Department of Revenue.

“You can not justify this tax at all,” Costa-Hanlon told Enos, who was seated across the table.

Her statement elicited applause from the spectators.

Enos said that if the fee was not applied for the remainder of the current budget year layoffs would be inevitable.

Among those who spoke publicly to the councilors were protest organizer Russell Oller, former fire chief Leman Padelford and one time conservation commission member Bob Newhall.